Not able to make sour dough starter

[uma]

I am trying to make sour dough starter using whole wheat flour and warm water, from boiled potatoes, same amount with some salt. Flour does not rise. Any suggestions.

[CoconutLover]

Is your sourdough starter active? Does it bubble and grow in size when you feed it? You should not be using it to make bread until it can do both of these things.

More information on what you have done to create and maintain your starter can help us to troubleshoot your issues.

[WWFSM]

Just to confirm, are you putting salt in your starter? If yes, don't. Probably need to toss it and start again.

Starter: the flour and water mix your yeast lives in.
Dough: the mix of flour, water, salt and other things that is going to make bread when baked.
Sponge: a mixture of starter, flour, water, and possibly other grains, used to make the dough.

Sorry you probably already know those things, but I put it there to help future readers know what I'm about to talk about, as some of the newer books use different definitions of these words.

My personal feelings and experiences with starter is that the yeast you catch likes the particular flour or food that you caught it with. If you need/want to change the food/flour you feed the starter, it's best to do it gradually so the invisible beasties that live in the starter (yeast and bacteria) can get use to the new food. Potato starter takes time to adjust when fed flour, and well, they just don't get along well. So mixing potato and flour in your starter, you may have two kinds of yeast competing with each other for dominance, which means neither will thrive. If your yeast ain't happy, bread don't rise.

Although many books give many complicated recipes to catch a sourdough starter, all you really need is flour and water. No milk, no potatoes, no sugar, no fruit, just flour, water and access to air. Or you can use potatoes and water, if potatoes work better for you.

Another issue you may be having is using warm water. Modern commercial yeast needs warm water to activate, but sourdough likes tepid water, even on the cool side. The wild yeast is use to being at room temperature or cooler, so try to keep your water like that.

If you have a flour starter and want to add potato water (or a potato starter and want to add flour) it's best to wait till the sponge stage. But I don't think you're that far along yet.

Could you tell us more about your technique for making a starter, maybe it can give us some insight for how to be more helpful. 9 times out of ten, it's not anything you are doing wrong, but rather the recipe for catching the starter being overly complicated (so the author can appear 'special').